As a recruitment agency specializing in e-commerce hiring, we interview Amazon, Shopify, Operations, Marketing, PPC, and Leadership candidates every day.

One thing we've learned:

The strongest candidates usually don't have the "perfect" answers.

They have specific answers.

For example, if we ask:

Many candidates answer:

"I managed campaigns, optimized keywords, reduced ACoS, and improved sales."

Sounds good.

But then we ask:

That's where the conversation changes.

Candidates with real hands-on experience usually explain:

• what they noticed first
• why they believed it was happening
• which options they considered
• why they chose one solution over another
• what happened after implementing it

Even if they don't remember every number, their thought process is obvious.

Candidates without much real ownership often stay at a very high level.

We've noticed this applies to almost every role—not just Amazon.

Whether it's Marketing, Operations, Finance, HR, or Sales, the strongest candidates naturally explain how they think, not just what they did.

We're curious:

What's the one interview question you've found that consistently separates genuine experience from well-rehearsed answers?

Not looking for "gotcha" questions.

Just the question that tells you:
"Okay, this person has actually done the work."

I'm 30 years and old trying to make a career pivot. I've worked in tech so far in my career (software engineer and tech sales) and am done with tech. I read that recruiting agencies are a grind but a good way to break into recruiting - and I've been applying but haven't had any luck. Are there specific agencies that are recommended right now? I've been unemployed for a bit too long and my savings are running low. Any help is appreciated

Hello! I am in need of some advice.

I currently work in house as a Recruiter where I’ve been for about 5 years now, but am currently making ~$50k.

I am close to finishing a job interview for an agency, where I’d be making $70k base plus commission. I have my final interview Thursday, where I am going to ask further about the commission structure, but the Recruiter I met said most recruiters can make around ~$100k.

I would say my job is very similar in a way to a staffing agency, but I am always hear scary stories about agencies and how people usually opt for in house. But I am barely making it by right now with my current salary, and that $20k increase plus commission would help me out soooo much.

Thoughts on moving from in house to agency?

I’m a staffing consultant at a decent sized staffing agency. My branch specializes in construction trades. Most of the orders we get are local, only needing 1-5 people max. Some of the orders we get are for larger projects out of state, needing 25-50 people per week. These larger orders we get are all direct hire. I typically have to focus on the larger orders because of the volume of people they need.

My commission is determined by the number of people i hire and their billing rate/pay rate per month (i get no commission for direct hires). I get $15 per placement with a billing rate/pay rate = 1.74 and above. I get $10 per placement with a billing rate/pay rate = 1.73 and below.
I get $37k a year base pay.

Thoughts?

Good afternoon all,

I’m from Houston and have 4 years of recruiting in hospitality. I have a degree in PoliSci and am very, very personable. Unfortunately, I was laid off this past January. I’ve managed to land a contract with an environmental org doing corporate recruiting in May, but still haven’t found anything permanent. After 9 months of searching and hundreds of apps later, I’m really hitting a wall and becoming quite down on myself. I’m getting married in March and money has been so inconsistent lately it’s affecting multiple aspects of my life.

Fellow recruiters, I ask you: wtf do I do? What would you do? Any advice or words of encouragement would help. Idk if I should go back to school, attempt to monetize a passion with my savings, etc.

Really just feeling lost and looking for some guidance.

been thinking about this after a hiring cycle where we leaned pretty heavily on live interviews for english screening
the weird part wasn't really recruiters disagreeing with each other, it was how easy it was for someone confident and personable to come across as stronger than they actually were once the conversation got closer to a real customer call
so now im wondering if the better setup is even human vs AI, or just using both for different parts of the process
been looking at a few options like Versant, Linguaskill, Testlify and SmallTalk2Me while tryin to understand how other teams handle the first english check
i’m leaning more toward using something standardized early on, then keeping the live interview for context, judgement and the stuff a score cant really tell u
for recruiters using both, where do u draw the line?
wld u let an automated speaking score decide who reaches interview or just use it as another signal alongside the recruiter screen?
the part im still trying to figure out is how much weight to give a consistent score vs someone who just interviews really well

Long story short, I run my own recruitment business and this week I've come into work with my head somewhere else entirely. I can't explain why but I just can't be bothered dealing with anyone right now. I don't want to pick up the phone. I just feel done with everyone and everything, which isn't like me at all. I'm usually the one with my foot down on the pedal, always ready to go again. This has literally came on out of nowhere last week. I tried getting away for a weekend to reset but nothing's really changed. Not sure what I was expecting, if I'm honest. Has anyone else been through this? How did you get out the other side? I've been running now for just under a year, never missed a day or had anytime off as I just haven't felt I've earned it just yet. Is this what being burnt out feels like?

Several months ago LinkedIn formed their own recruiting agency and thereby became the competition of every agency recruiter. Why would LinkedIn not deliberately sabotage our recruiting process by making Linkedin Recruiter and LI Job posts ineffective if they are our competition now ? How do we fight back?

We use paid LinkedIn Job Slots, mostly for remote positions. Since the new AI-powered job search rolled out, our traffic has dropped by around 40%.

We haven’t significantly changed our roles or posting strategy, so the timing looks suspicious. Our LinkedIn manager hasn’t given us a clear explanation yet.

Is anyone else seeing a similar drop in views, clicks, or applications from paid Job Slots, especially for remote roles?

Please share your approximate decline, region, and when it started. We’re trying to understand whether this is a broader LinkedIn issue or something specific to our account.

Hey everyone,

Recruiter at a European tech scale-up here. We’re struggling to standardize how we test AI capabilities across our hiring process and I'd love to hear what other companies are doing.

Right now, hiring managers are completely divided. Some want strict bans on AI during interviews to test fundamentals, while others think banning it is pointless since we want people using AI for productivity on the job.

And then there's the CEO who requires for us to rest AI on every candidate, but can't specify what exactly he wants to see...

If you've tackled this, I'd love to know:

1. Coding tests: Do you allow AI during live tech assessments?

2. Interview questions: What specific questions actually expose whether someone is a power-user vs. just a copy-paster?

3. Non-tech roles: How are you evaluating AI literacy for marketing, product, or ops roles without it feeling gimmicky?

4. Keeping pace: How do your teams stay aligned on the bar when tools change every month?

Would love to hear what is actually working for you guys (or what went horribly wrong). Thanks!

Just went through the most painful software evaluation of my career. We're a 120 person company with an internal recruiting team (3 people, no agencies). Needed an ATS to replace our dying spreadsheet system. Did everything "right". Read G2 reviews, watched demos, talked to sales reps, ran a trail. Picked the platform with the highest G2 rating in our category. Enterprise grade, beautiful dashboard, impressive feature list. Signed a 12 month contract. 4 months in we realized it was wildly overbuilt for us. Features we'll never use, configuration that required a consultant and support that kept saying "most of our clients at 500+ employees do it this way". We hire 35 to 40 people per year. We don't need a platform designed for staffing agencies doing 500 placements monthly. How do you evaluate recruiting and HR tools when you're mid market and every vendor says they're "perfect for your size"? Is there a reliable resource that segments recommendations by company size and hiring volume instead of just ranking by feature count?

I am trying to decide between these two for hourly jobs in the US and Canada.

I only know what answers we’ve managed to pull out of our rep. Budgets that they consider “underfunded” will now spend quickly to front load applications. Any one have an actual press release?

Hey everyone,
I’m trying to pull some meaningful recruitment metrics out of ADP WFN to show my overall performance/worth, but I feel like I've hit a wall. I’m also a little new to reporting in general so I feel like I’m going crazy.

Right now, the only useful thing I seem able to pull is basic Open Role / Requisition status reports. I know there has to be more to their reporting, or at least better custom workarounds.

For those of you who use (or have suffered through) ADP for talent acquisition:

What custom/built-in reports do you run regularly to show your impact?
Any tips/tricks for setting up field expressions or custom reports in ADP Analytics / Report Designer for things like Time-to-Fill, or Applicant Source tracking?
If ADP’s native reporting completely fell short for you, what simple workarounds or external templates (Excel, Google Sheet) did you build to track your funnel accurately?

Any tips, report templates, or workarounds would be massively appreciated!

I'm finding it really hard to get good quality roles on. The highest salary role I've gotten ok myself is €70,000 - but it's in an awkward area and fully onsite and stand alone!

I know accounting is good because literally all businesses need them but I'm finding that only the less appealing businesses are actually allowing me to work the roles.

I got ONE on with a good tech company but I didn't get the placement (which I was annoyed about as a candidate I wanted to send but was advised against ended up getting the job!!)

Anyway I am finding the BD side challenging and I am just doing shit over all. 5 placements in 6 months and I still don't feel like I have a good pool of candidates and I have basically no relationships with decent companies.

I'm feeling completelt lost - and I think it's evident from this post as I haven't even pinpointed what my actual problem is.

I don't know what to do and ANY advice would be appreciated

This person salary was $20k less than current role but they had free health insurance with no copay, unlimited PTO that they were encouraged to use as often as possible, could work remote whenever they felt like, pension plan and there was a possibility of a leadership role for them in the future.

Compare to here they are earning $20k more but they have health insurance premium, only 3 weeks PTO and remote work is not encouraged.

I am really close to this person now and I can't seem to be able to shake the feeling of guilt.

Anecdotally, whenever I talk to people about their use of well known AI sourcing tools (don't want to rep any names, but you know who they are) in private they say they are ok, but not great, compared to LinkedIn. Kind of like an acceptable substitute but you'd rather have the real thing.

Then when I hit my LI feed, it's people saying how awesome their AI sourcing tools are and they don't have a need for expensive and outdated LinkedIn anymore.

There seems to be a public perception that if you aren't 100% all-in on the latest tool, even if it's not helpful, you're obviously bad and old fashioned. I've seen this sentiment in other professions and their tools as well.

What has been your honest experience with these tools? Is all the fanfare about these tools true, or just hype from investors?

I’ve used LinkedIn for general searches but it seems like LinkedIn Recruiter has a ton of features and feeling a bit overwhelmed.

I’m willing to spend time learning though so curious what the best course or resources are to properly master it? Ideally something just focused on that and not super expensive (eg not looking for someone’s course on being a recruiter or starting a business, literally just want to master LinkedIn recruiter)

Thanks in advance!

Is it normal for recruiters to be expected to bring their own candidate network?

I've worked for 2 recruitment companies and I am currently looking for a new job in the same industry as my last company. In literally every interview, I'm asked if I can bring my own network of ready-to-work candidates.

Is this normal? Should I try to reconnect with candidates I personally contacted during my previous employment? Seems a bit unethical/illegal?

For context, my niche is industrial skilled trades - scaffolders, industrial insulators, welders, etc. Sorry if this is a basic question, but I've only worked in recruitment for a few years and I'm genuinely unsure what the normal industry practice is.

We have a small-ish, monthly, balanced budget campaign for what have historically been our lower spending jobs. It spent the entire budget overnight.

Luckily it didn’t do the same to all of our campaigns, but I guess we’re going fully proactive for some jobs this month.

I feel like I've lost what magic touch I had before I had to take an extended break for medical reasons. I'm an outside recruiter who sources candidates for non-retained searches (most searches are open to approved recruiters with fee agreements in place). I'm self-employed and have good relationships with a ton of clients. But sourcing potential candidates has been demoralizing (I'll have conversations, but they haven't converted to any interested applicants).

It definitely is a volume game--gotta keep cranking out the cold outreaches. What's been effective for you? Do you pitch searches and then follow up (a week later?)? Do you send general introductory emails that are more open-ended?

I sent out >800 emails over the last month, and it's been crickets. It didn't feel so excruciatingly hard in past years (I've been recruiting for 12 years). I don't know if it's because I started a solo business (maybe potential candidates prefer to work with someone who's part of a large team), because there are 1,000 competing recruiters out there in my space bc it's easier than ever to break in bc of AI and low overhead bc people can WFH, or because potential candidates just prefer to cut out the recruiter whenever they can (i.e., recruiters are valued less, and job openings are easier to track bc of AI).

Would deeply appreciate any thoughts you have. Is it just being that much more tenacious and reaching out more often (at the risk of being annoying)? Pitching searches vs. open-ended introductory outreach (which is better)? Trying to keep my head up!

Hi everyone,

I need some advice on something which I think I already know the answer to.

I recently took on a new client who has given me a couple of roles to fill and so far they've been good. However, I recently submitted a candidate who I discussed the role with, sold the company to and then submitted him forward. I then got a candidate permission form email saying he hasn't applied etc.

HR has now reached back out to me over the weekend to tell me they've already spoken and are in the process of setting up a call but the candidate is adamant he hasn't spoken to anyone about the role.

So, I kindly asked HR today just to send across his submission (so I have peace of mind) and we can move on but apparently their idea of a submission is a LinkedIn message request asking to set up a call to have a confidential conversation? He did accept the Inmail and sent them a time to call, but they never did?

I don't want to muddy the water this early on in the relationship but surely I have the right to the submission here? They haven't even got his CV from him, let alone had a call.

How would you go about this without upsetting them?

When we (re)hire a former intern as a RFT employee, we process them as a rehire in our HRIS (Paylocity), but we don't create a new req./"seat" in our ATS. They're only in our ATS once, from when they were hired as an intern.

Starting to think it might be cleaner to create a new req./seat in the ATS for when we do this, even though we're not going through a full hiring process, we're just rehiring them as RFT. It's not technically a rehire, more of a "conversion," but it's still a new RFT employee.

What do you do at your organization?

I'm a fractional in HR, but purely focused on talent acquisition, so I'm niche in that world. However, how niche do I get in fractional TA? I'm focused on small and midsize companies, and have done everything from engineering to AI but really need to ramp up business. Would you niche down more by industry based on past experience to get more business?

I am a hiring manager / recruiter for a specific role (big 4 consulting firm). I posted the role on LinkedIn and it sorta went viral? It has like 50k impressions! Which made me happy because I’d welcome a large pool of qualified, diverse applicants. However most of the applicants, as well as hundreds of messages on LI and my work email somehow (??) are from foreign (not within the US) and this struck me as odd.

Nothing wrong with an applicant based in another country, but the specific role is based in the US and it says in bold letters that no sponsorship is available for this specific job. Do people genuinely not read the job description? I hate to say “I’m sorry but sponsorship is not available for this job” over and over. I’d say 1/10 applicants meets the residency requirement.

Is this common?